Breeding of the Crane in Lapland. 195 



heard a slight chuckle that must have been from them. At 

 length, as I had my glass in the direction of the nest, which was 

 three or four hundred yards off, I saw a tall grey figure emer- 

 ging fi'om amongst the birch trees, just beyond where I knew 

 the nest must be ; and there stood the Crane in all the beauty 

 of nature, in the full side light of an Arctic summer night. She 

 came on with her graceful walk, her head up, and she raised it 

 a little higher and turned her beak sideways and upwards as 

 she passed round the tree on whose trunk I had hung the little 

 roll of bark. I had not anticipated that she would observe so 

 ordinary an object. She probably saw that her eggs were safe, 

 and then she took a beat of twenty or thirty yards in the swamp, 

 pecking and apparently feeding. At the end of this beat she 

 stood still for a quarter of an hour, sometimes pecking and 

 sometimes motionless, but showing no symptoms of suspicion 

 of my whereabouts, and indeed no manifest sign of fear. At 

 length she turned back and passed her nest a few paces in the 

 opposite direction, but soon came in to it ; she arranged with 

 her beak the materials of the nest, or the eggs, or both ; she 

 dropped her breast gently forwards, and, as soon as it touched, 

 she let the rest of her body sink gradually down. And so she 

 sits with her neck up and her body full in my sight, sometimes 

 preening her feathers, especially of the neck, sometimes lazily 

 pecking about, and for a long time she sits with her neck curved 

 like a swanks, though principally at its upper part. Now she 

 turns her head backwards, puts her beak under the wing, ap- 

 parently just in the middle of the ridge of the back^ and so she 

 seems fairly to go to sleep. While she sits, as generally while 

 she walks, her plumes are compressed and inconspicuous. 



By this time all birds, excepting perhaps a Fieldfare, are 

 silent. I was now sure the Crane would not carry off her eggs. 

 After enjoying for a short time longer this sight — and no epithet 

 is yet in use which expresses the nature of the feelings created by 

 such scenes in the minds of those who fully enjoy them — I found 

 that the air was freezing. I quietly got up, and on reaching the 

 fire made myself comfortable. Some four hours later, that is, be- 

 tween four and five in the morning, we came again to the west 

 side of the hill j there lay the Crane, head and neck still invisible ; 



